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News About Tech, Money and InnovationTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:32:47 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Copyright 2015, VentureBeatFacebook’s 2013 shows how it will take over the rest of the world in 2014http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/27/facebooks-2013-shows-how-it-will-take-over-the-rest-of-the-world-in-2014/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/27/facebooks-2013-shows-how-it-will-take-over-the-rest-of-the-world-in-2014/#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 17:00:35 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=870655These stories show us the path behind, but they also help us to project the trajectory of the near future. And 2014 is all about mobile, money, and conquering the rest of the world.
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The writing is on the wall. If we take any time at all to observe the recent past for Facebook, we can easily see its near future.

And it’s rosy as all get-out, with a few important exceptions.

This year, Facebook committed to mobile technologies with a fervor unprecedented in the industry. For a network that existed before mobile apps were even a thing, it made a remarkable pivot into a mobile-best position.

In the shaky year following its IPO, it posted astounding revenue numbers quarter after quarter — again making its biggest slam dunks in mobile revenue.

It proved an engineering-driven company can change the world. And it showed that the social web still has the power to delight us.

But it also proved that our privacy is only as good as the people who access our data, and we know less about that than we could ever have imagined.

Here are the company’s biggest stories of 2013, as well as our predictions for Facebook’s advances into 2014.

The website evolved

Following the rollout of Timeline last year, Facebook.com got a few big upgrades in 2013.

The platform also launched its first ads, bringing to a close a longtime speculation on the service’s business model.

We don’t yet have breakout financials on how successful the ads have been — but give it a couple of quarters, and Instagram will likely make an appearance of some sort in the company’s earnings calls.

Facebook’s brain got bigger

This engineering-driven company placed a big emphasis this year on putting its huge body of data to work. Zuckerberg highlighted Facebook’s plans for artificial intelligence, and we saw machine learning in action with Graph Search, a fascinating new way to narrow your social graph down to specific people by interest, workplace, school, and more.

Does anyone use it? And is it actually useful yet? “Not really” and “not yet” are the answers that spring to mind. But Facebookers tell us this version of Graph Search is just the beginning, with more search options coming soon. For example, posts and comments are becoming searchable, so you can finally find that one comment where Alicia totally ratted you out for scamming on Taylor’s boyfriend.

VoIP calling crept in

In 2013, Facebook added yet another connectivity service to its repertoire: voice calling and voicemail. Voicemail came first to the company’s Android and iOS applications, and the company started testing actual voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) calls in Canada. Tests proved successful, and Facebook rolled out voice calling for iOS as well as Android.

This feature was first announced at the beginning of the year, and we’re hazy on just how quickly it’s being adopted so far. Maybe, like Messenger, Facebook VoIP needs its own app to really be a success story for the social network.

It spearheaded an immigration-reform nonprofit

Facebook was a front-runner in the establishment of FWD.us, a nonprofit bent on immigration reform, especially regarding knowledge workers in the tech industry.

“We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants. And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world,” Zuckerberg said in April at the time of the launch.

“As leaders of an industry that has benefited from this economic shift, we believe that we have a responsibility to work together to ensure that all members of our society gain from the rewards of the modern knowledge economy,” Zuckerberg stated.

It fought the privacy breach of a lifetime

Above: Facebook’s Open Computer servers at work in Prineville, Ore.

Image Credit: Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat

On June 6, we got on the phone with an anonymous Facebooker and (on background only) heard our worst fears subtly confirmed: Yes, the government had been spying on us and collecting all our web-browsing and social media data for longer than we could imagine.

The company rep said Facebook had fought like heck against government agencies and urged us to keep reporting on PRISM and the NSA to bring these violations to light.

As the Snowden leaks exploded across the web throughout the fall, we followed the story. Even Zuckerberg admitted that the U.S. government was blowing it when it came to citizens’ rights to privacy.

Eventually, Facebook, along with Google, AOL, and others, launched a petition to stop the spying.

The executive seats saw shakeups

Two long-vacant seats on the Facebook executive were filled by excellent folks this year. The CTO position, vacant for a soul-shaking nine months, was claimed by longtime engineering VP Mike “Schrep” Shchroepfer (above). And the company got its first-ever chief marketing officer in the form of one Gary Briggs, previously a chief marketer at Motorola Mobility.

We said goodbye to Gifts

Facebook shuttered its experiment with Gifts, a person-to-person platform for choosing and sending physical presents. Zuckerberg revealed in an earnings call that Gifts, an offshoot of the company’s Karma acquisition, wasn’t a true money-maker. At the beginning of the year, Facebook unveiled gift cards, and by August, the social network shut down physical gifts altogether, while keeping gift cards and virtual gifts (e.g., in-game purchases or credits) on the menu.

Facebook became the world leader in mobile

As the year came to a close, Facebook showed us it’s closing in on a huge, one billion mobile active users for all its mobile apps. Yeah. One billion — almost as many members as Facebook has in toto.

The company got experimental in launching a bold Android skin called Facebook Home. Even though the full-bleed images and elegant notifications took the Android OS to new heights, the interface was a dud with consumers. Still, elements of Home live on in other features the company is rolling out on mobile — Chat Heads, in particular. Home was a leap into the deep end of what’s possible for Facebook on Android; we’ll see if the rest of the world wants to take the plunge in the future.

What’s coming in 2014?

These stories show us the path behind, but they also help us to project the trajectory of the near future.

Expect to see even more mobile web users for Facebook’s “everywhere” site — and watch the entire mobile web achieve rapid acceleration as Facebook open-sources more tools for building perfect mobile websites.

Stay tuned for Facebook’s grasp extend to and increase in far-flung parts of the world, often to the great benefit of citizens of the developing world, who use Facebook for political purposes, maintaining family ties, and learning about issues that impact them most.

Look out for the social network’s numbers to skyrocket as its mobile emphasis continues to grow — and watch its mobile revenue compound as a direct result.

Anticipate more activism from Facebook — more anti-bulling/pro-LGBT measures, more charitable efforts, more political involvement, and more pushback on government spying (with the concentrated help of U.S. Facebook users).

And every quarter, track meteoric financial growth as the company continues to optimize for revenue, roll out new revenue-generating products, perfect its advertising mechanisms and measurement, and claim ever greater numbers of members.

]]>2Facebook’s 2013 shows how it will take over the rest of the world in 2014Causes relaunches campaign platform to put the ‘act’ back in ‘activism’http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/24/causes-relaunches-campaign-platform-to-put-the-act-back-in-activism/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/24/causes-relaunches-campaign-platform-to-put-the-act-back-in-activism/#commentsTue, 24 Sep 2013 17:22:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=817646Causes unveiled a new version of its online campaigning platform today and introduced the Supporter Network, where people can showcase what they believe in and rally with like-minded people.
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Activism in the 1960s involved thousands of people rallying together for a common cause despite any risks. Online activism is less dramatic, and some might argue less meaningful.

And Causes is trying to change this.

Causes unveiled a new version of its online campaigning platform today and launched the Supporter Network as a key component. People can now build personal profiles that center around causes they believe in as well as find others with the same beliefs and rally to take collective action.

“This is a purpose-driven network that revolves around people’s cause identities, a part of their identity that is very core but underserved online,” said CEO Matt Mahan in an interview at Causes’ office. “The product before was very focused on action-taking, but it was almost like skipping the first steps — what is identity and how do you connect?”

Causes started as a Facebook app in 2007 as a channel for online activism. People could promote causes that were important to them and raise money by asking those in their social network to make donations. By 2010, Causes had enough traction that it raised $9 million to drive donors to its standalone site.

Now the site attracts 6 million people a month. Members have collectively raised over $48 million for nonprofits and collected 34 million signatures for grassroots campaigns. The company has helped over 186 million people around the world connect with a cause.

The platform features hundreds of causes, including saving whales, stopping domestic violence, supporting the U.S. military, and LGBT rights.

The goal is to create communities.

“You can’t have social change and movement without social connection,” Mahan said. “Private, professional, and offline social capital is declining. We know our neighbors less, and there are fewer dinners at home. I don’t believe this is a tools problem; this is a people and culture issue, which is why we are going back to identity and social connection.”

The concept of online activism has taken some heat over the years. Journalist Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for the New Yorker on “why the revolution will not be tweeted,” arguing that serious activism involves highly committed, articulate supports of goals and values and a personal connection to the movement at large. The movements grow when people bring in others they are close to and offer up their time, resources, and reputation for the good of the cause.

“The kind of activism associated with social media isn’t like this at all,” Gladwell wrote. “The platforms of social media are built around weak ties.”

With the Supporter Network, Mahan aims to change this.

Mahan became CEO of Causes in 2012. He participated in Teach for America, a nonprofit that takes college grads and professionals and puts them into the classroom for two years, and worked as a grassroots organizer before joining Causes in 2008 as the VP of business development. His education and experiences showed him how much more powerful grassroots efforts can be when they are centered around communities, where people can discuss, share, brainstorm, and problem solve together.

“Support shouldn’t be as lightweight as a follow. It should be a public statement that ‘I am willing to take action,'” he said. “I don’t think change happens when 10,000 people sign a petition. It happens through change in culture, expanding awareness, building a sense of purpose with people who want a better future.”

The Supporter Network showcases the issues people care about and helps them find like-minded members, relevant campaigns, and cause-related content. Some people may want to tone down their activism in Facebook so as not to alienate their friends, who may not feel as passionately as they do. On Causes, they can post without compunction because it’s a dedicated space to assert their beliefs.

The new Causes also has tools to help campaign organizers mobilize supporters by helping them set up personal campaigns within the larger ones. It also includes free analytics for nonprofits and brands that use Causes to rally support. Brand partners include World Wildlife Fund, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Malaria No More, Somaly Mam (a human-rights activist who fights the sex trade), Rock the Vote, Toyota, and Budweiser.

Celebrities who espouse a specific cause can also create profiles and draw attention to campaigns. Launch partners include singer Ricky Martin, who campaigns to stop human trafficking, and actress Kristin Chenoweth is a vocal animal welfare advocate.

Causes is based in San Francisco and recently moved into the former Github offices in the SoMa neighborhood just south of downtown.

]]>0Causes relaunches campaign platform to put the ‘act’ back in ‘activism’Aaron Swartz memorial serves as a political call to actionhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/01/19/aaron-swartz-nyc-memorial/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/19/aaron-swartz-nyc-memorial/#commentsSun, 20 Jan 2013 05:18:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=607372The memory of Aaron Swartz remains strong more than a week after his tragic death, judging from the turnout at his memorial service in New York City tonight.
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The memory of Aaron Swartz remains strong more than a week after his tragic death, judging from the turnout at his memorial service in New York City tonight.

Around 900 people attended the service at Cooper Union’s Great Hall, which featured a selection of speakers close to Swartz. In addition to remembering his life and accomplishments, there was also a constant push towards political action — something that makes it clear Swartz’s legacy will live on for some time.

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, the founder of corporate responsibility site SumofUs.org and Swartz’s partner, noted that the best tribute would be for “all of us to go out today and fight to make the world a better place.”

She pushed for five main goals for the audience: Making sure the Massachusetts U.S. attorneys office was held accountable for its tactics prosecuting Swartz; opening up all academic research to anyone in the world for free; making sure MIT vowed never to be part of a similar event; strengthen the criminal reform system; and help pass Aaron’s Law, which would limit the number of charges that can be brought against someone who violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“Aaron believed there was no shame in failure,” Stinebricker-Kauffman said. “There is deep, deep shame in caring more about believing you’re changing the world than actually changing the world.”

Quinn Norton, an activist, technology writer, and former partner of Swartz’s, stressed that we should also remember him as “another human being with all the flaws and glories that we all have.” She noted that he could be petty and greedy, while also being loving and hopeful. “But in a culture that is ruled by fear, he taught and showed me that trying is more important than being afraid,” she said.

Other speakers included Roy Singham, chair of IT consulting group Thoughtworks (where Swartz was working before his death); executive director of Demand Progress David Segal; and renowned information design writer Edward Tufte.

Earlier today, Wikileaks claimed that Swartz was also a possible source. While the group says it can’t verify if Swartz indeed contributed leaked information, its mission certainly falls in line with Swartz’s drive for making information free and public.

]]>1Aaron Swartz memorial serves as a political call to actionGo Daddy gives into pressure, comes out against SOPAhttp://venturebeat.com/2011/12/23/go-daddy-anti-sopa/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/23/go-daddy-anti-sopa/#commentsFri, 23 Dec 2011 19:12:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=369646Domain and hosting site Go Daddy just announced that it no longer supports the recently proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The statement (pasted below) comes after the intense backlash Go Daddy received yesterday from customers and Internet critics after it appeared on an official list of companies supporting SOPA. Not only did Go Daddy […]
]]>Domain and hosting site Go Daddy just announced that it no longer supports the recently proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The statement (pasted below) comes after the intense backlash Go Daddy received yesterday from customers and Internet critics after it appeared on an official list of companies supporting SOPA. Not only did Go Daddy issue a statement on its new stance, but it’s also compulsively responding to any comments on Twitter referencing a Go Daddy boycott (screenshot here). It’s the same message, tweeted over a hundred times at this point.

For anyone who’s still in the dark about the proposed legislation, SOPA gives both the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating and/or counterfeiting intellectual property. The implication of having the act pass is that it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. For example, if a website is accused of containing copyright-infringing content (such as a song, picture or video clip), the site could be blocked by ISPs, de-indexed from search engines and even prevented from doing business with companies like PayPal.

As one of the largest domain registrars, Go Daddy’s support of SOPA was extremely alarming to many people and companies with a strong presence on the Internet because it could make de-indexing domain names much easier.

Talk of a Go Daddy boycott began yesterday on community link-sharing site Reddit, and quickly grew to include several influential business leaders and media personalities. Among them were Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh and celebrity/investor Ashton Kutcher. The company’s change-of-heart was announced today around the same time Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Tweeted he would be transferring Wikipedia’s domains from Go Daddy in protest.

Go Daddy initially shrugged off the protests, issuing a nonchalant response to let people know it hasn’t negatively impacted its business — which was the equivalent of shaking the hell out of a giant beehive and not expecting to get stung. Boycott participators responded by publishing step-by-step tutorials for transferring a bulk of domains to a new registrar, complete with recommendations to competitors.

It also started a Scumbag Go Daddy meme, which will probably never go away despite the company’s new stance on SOPA. It’ll be interesting to see if people still decide to take their business away from Go Daddy.

Check out the full statement from Go Daddy pasted below:

Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said.

]]>0Go Daddy gives into pressure, comes out against SOPAScheduled Anonymous attack on U.S. Chamber of Commerce passes without incidenthttp://venturebeat.com/2011/05/23/anonymous-chamber-of-commerce/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/23/anonymous-chamber-of-commerce/#commentsTue, 24 May 2011 06:29:55 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=260882It looks like an attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website from hacktivist group Anonymous — scheduled for 8 p.m. eastern time Monday according to posts on online image board 4chan and news aggregator Reddit — passed without incident and the site is still online. The attack was supposed to be part of a […]
]]>It looks like an attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website from hacktivist group Anonymous — scheduled for 8 p.m. eastern time Monday according to posts on online image board 4chan and news aggregator Reddit — passed without incident and the site is still online.

The attack was supposed to be part of a protest against anti-piracy legislation proposed in Congress called the “PROTECT IP” act — or “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property.” The hacktivist group said that the bill would allow the U.S. Government to force search engines and internet service providers to censor websites they do not like by saying it could cause copyright infringement. It wouldn’t be the first time Anonymous has taken up a political cause as the group attacked Visa and Bank of America for trying to cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s website is still humming and shows no sign of slowing down. The site loaded in a few seconds around the time the attack took place and it still only takes just a few seconds to load as of 11 p.m. pacific time. It looks like Anonymous was not able to rally enough of an attacking force to bring the site offline with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack using a program called the “low-orbit ion cannon.”

The “attack” wasn’t necessarily a failure — but it just shows how divisive and amorphous hacktivist group Anonymous can be. While a number of online activists frequently claim leadership over the hacking group and release missives and press releases, it can be difficult to rally the online hackers toward a cause. It’s usually politically motivated, like when the hacktivist group brought attacked Sony after the company tried to sue a hacker for “jailbreaking” a PlayStation 3 console.

Anonymous is a murky name sweepingly applied to hackers who frequent online forums like 4chan and other news aggregators that have undertaken some of the larger political causes. But because it isn’t an official organization, it’s hard to place any faces or names to the hacktivist group and it can, at times, be a very loose organization. There are also a few reports that hackers within the quasi-group Anonymous are starting to attack each other over how the PlayStation Network attacks and responses were handled.

]]>1Scheduled Anonymous attack on U.S. Chamber of Commerce passes without incidentEgypt restores Internet access amid continued Mubarak protestshttp://venturebeat.com/2011/02/02/egypt-restores-internet/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/02/egypt-restores-internet/#commentsWed, 02 Feb 2011 15:47:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=240916The Egyptian government has restored Internet service to the country after an unprecedented nationwide Internet shutdown that lasted almost a week, the Internet security firm Renesys confirms. The communications shutdown, which began on January 27, was meant to make it more difficult for protesters to organize. But it didn’t stop an estimated 250,000 citizens from […]
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The communications shutdown, which began on January 27, was meant to make it more difficult for protesters to organize. But it didn’t stop an estimated 250,000 citizens from gathering in Cairo yesterday to call for the end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s rule, which has lasted for three decades. Smaller protests also sprung up in other major Egyptian cities like Alexandria.

By restoring Internet access, the Egyptian government may be hoping to stabilize the turmoil the country is currently facing. Yesterday President Mubarak announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election later this year. But anti-Mubarak protesters are fed up and want him out of the country as soon as possible.

]]>7Egypt restores Internet access amid continued Mubarak protestsFacebook cofounder launches Jumo, social network for activismhttp://venturebeat.com/2010/11/30/facebook-cofounder-launches-jumo-social-network-for-activism/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/30/facebook-cofounder-launches-jumo-social-network-for-activism/#commentsTue, 30 Nov 2010 11:35:30 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=229559Jumo, a new venture started by Chris Hughes, Facebook’s cofounder and the social media maven behind Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, launched in public beta today. Billed as a social network for social causes and activism, the service aims to help people find and discover issues they care about with their friends, keep tabs on […]
]]>Jumo, a new venture started by Chris Hughes, Facebook’s cofounder and the social media maven behind Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, launched in public beta today.

Billed as a social network for social causes and activism, the service aims to help people find and discover issues they care about with their friends, keep tabs on them through news and updates, and over time, help support their work and raise awareness. A nonprofit itself, Jumo is the latest example of broad efforts throughout the industry to bring the energy and innovation of venture-backed startups to the world of philanthropy.

Getting started with the service requires you to connect your Facebook account, after which you’re asked to select various issues, ranging from Arts and Culture to Education, Health, and Human Rights, and rate them according to your level of interest. Jumo then suggests charities and organizations to follow out of the 3,500 it has signed up for its initial launch.

Once set up is completed, the crux of the service is a Facebook-style “Top News” section on its homepage that contains latest activity from your followed issues and charities. Items in the news stream are supposed to be relevant to the your interests and help you keep updated with issues, charities, and people that you care about.

While Jumo has a well-executed user interface and is headed in the right direction, something I found peculiar about the social network is, ironically, a lack of social features. For example, even though accounts are connected to Facebook, there is no way to see which of my friends I can find on Jumo, other interesting people worth following, or invite others. I had to search for my Facebook friends, as well as founder Chris Hughes, to find and follow their profiles.

All this may not be an entirely bad thing considering that it leaves much of the site’s focus on the issues and charities themselves, but if Jumo plans on billing itself as a social network that helps users spread the word and raise awareness, it may not be a bad idea to make it easier to find likeminded souls.

Worth noting is Hughes’ intentional lack of focus on donations on the site.

“We are not trying to build another donation platform. We are really focused on building a social network where you can find compelling projects and issues and connect with them in a way that will be lasting,” Hughes told the LA Times.

That may help differentiate Jumo from Causes, a similar application started by Sean Parker and Joe Green, two entrepreneurs with similarly close ties to Facebook’s founding circle, which has reached 119 million users over its four years of existence. It has a more overt focus on fundraising, with prominent “Donate Now” buttons and windows which pop up suggesting donations.

Jumo is based in New York and has raised $3.5 million from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network, the Knight Foundation, and other individual backers.

]]>3Facebook cofounder launches Jumo, social network for activismTwitter’s Evan Williams: The revolution will be tweetedhttp://venturebeat.com/2010/10/11/twitters-evan-williams-predicts-it-will-continue-to-grow-as-an-agent-of-change/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/11/twitters-evan-williams-predicts-it-will-continue-to-grow-as-an-agent-of-change/#commentsTue, 12 Oct 2010 04:39:08 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=219439The usage of social networking site Twitter as an agent for political and social change will only increase in upcoming years, predicted cofounder Evan Williams at a public debate today, as the service continues to reach more people in real-time. “It’s always been our goal to reach the ‘weakest signals’ all over the world, such […]
]]>The usage of social networking site Twitter as an agent for political and social change will only increase in upcoming years, predicted cofounder Evan Williams at a public debate today, as the service continues to reach more people in real-time.

“It’s always been our goal to reach the ‘weakest signals’ all over the world, such as the recent usage in Iran and Moldova,” when those countries were undergoing violent unrest and saw little local media coverage of protests, said Williams.

At the same time, however, Williams and cofounder Biz Stone, Twitter’s creative director, both took issue with a recent New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell that posited “the revolution will not be tweeted.”

Stone agreed that in order to effect real, meaningful social change, “you need strong ties, such as real friends in the real world, and a real hierarchical, military-like structure … to really get things done.”

But he added that with a real-time exchange of information like Twitter, it would be “absurd to argue that those are not effective and helpful and complementary, to disseminating information.”

“It’s not going to be technology that will be the agent of change that changes the world — it will be actual people making actual change,” said Stone.

Williams and Stone were speaking at an INFORUM–Commonwealth Club event that focused on creating debate around civic issues. It was moderated by Businessweek tech writer Brad Stone.

As for taking on all autocracies at once, Twitter is apparently not quite ready to tackle China as a test case for free speech.

“We believe passionately in the free exchange of information across the world. We get the sense, however, that that is not exactly how the Chinese authorities see them. Hence, we are going to hold off for now,” said Williams, adding the company has no immediate plans to tackle the country’s restrictive speech policies. “China is big, but there are a lot of other places in the world where we want to focus.”

Williams touched only briefly on the news last week that he was stepping down as CEO of the company, handing the title over to former COO Dick Costolo. The move was a strategic one, said Williams, and designed to help the company keep growing in “the right directions.”

“I just realized that the demands for the CEO going forward would be much more about a typical CEO role” that would involve planning and organization, which “was a lot of the reason why I brought Dick on as COO last year.”

“I just thought Dick could do a better job than I can, while I can do a better job in products,” said Williams, who described himself as fundamentally a “products guy.”

Twitter has experienced booming growth since its founding in 2006, leaping from mere thousands of users in its first year to more than 160 million tweeting over 100 million a day. The privately held company has also seen its employee roster jump from dozens of employees at its start to over 300.